The Mundys are Flying!

What is the only thing that Rick and I had in common today? We are both flying! Rick started Phase 2 of UPT (Undergraduate Pilot Training) and I had to fly to WI again for another business meeting. Rick had his "Dollar Ride" on March 8th which signifies the first day he flew in the T-6 Texan 2.

T-6

Pretty cool, huh! In the past week he has flown the plane numerous times and he is already feeling the pressure. This is a really powerful plane, much more powerful than the other planes he has flown:

DA20

Cessna

 

 

 

 

The effect of experiencing so many G's has gotten him pretty dizzy at times and he has been getting home absolutely exhausted. Now that Rick is in Phase 2 he is on what's called formal release. This means that he isn't allowed to leave the flight training rooms once he starts in the morning until 12 hours have passed. Last week was pretty hard on us because he wasn't required to go in until 8:30 AM which means that he wasn't getting home until 8:30 PM and since he was so exhausted he was in bed by 9:30! On top of all of the changes we had to deal with last week, Dulce got pretty sick. We think it was her food and it either doesn't agree with her or we introduced it too aggressively. Either way, we had lots of messes to clean up this week.

Sick puppy

But now she is back on her old food and as happy as ever!

What a lady!

I really wish I could be at home this week since last week was pretty tough and stressful, but  I had to fly up to Sheboygan Falls, WI for another business trip today.

We are working on the plan for shipping our new machine down to Acuna and then installing it so that we can be up and running to make our promised sales forecast. Fun, fun. The weather has been a bit shocking compared to what I'm used to down in Del Rio. The high in Del Rio today was a glorious 90 F, but this is what my week looks like up here:

On the other hand warm weather isn't always a good thing, just look at who is back now that the hot weather is setting in:

Eww! A cockroach on the sidewalk!

In other news, it has been a very long time since I have blogged so let me get you all caught up on what's going on with the Mundys. So Happy St. Patrick's Day! I made a delicious meal of corned beef and cabbage, Irish soda bread, and a pistachio cake, and for our beverage we had green beer! Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures, but I know that our friends Jeremy and Amanda really appreciated the yummy meal!

This weekend we also were lucky enough to host my Aunt Judy and Uncle Larry as they visited our home for the first time. They even brought Ranger! Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures (I've been out of it) and our previous visitor was Rick's Dad (and no pictures from that visit either).

Luckily I did get some pictures when my parents came out to visit in January! Actually, my Dad took pictures so therefore I have pictures to post here! I really need to get better with blogging often and taking pictures!

Here we are at the Seminole Canyons

Here we are at the Amistad Dam

Go Pats!

Group photo at the Cave Paintings!

Speaking of our home, we certainly are moving on up in the world! We replaced our day bed which was my bed from home, but was being used as a couch in our family room. I sold it on the virtual yard sale we have on facebook for our base to a little girl who was so excited to have it!

Our old day bed

Our new really comfy recliner couch

And we bought new silverware! I'm only putting these pictures up because my mom wanted to see our new set. Pretty, pretty!

Rick and I even had a chance to get all dressed up for an event at Club XL one day! It can be fun to get all dressy!

And we got to go to little miss Aubrey's 3rd birthday party! She's getting so big! Here is a picture of her in our birthday present, she was so excited she put it on right when she unwrapped it!

Hmm, let's see what else was going on in these past few months! Oh of course I had to take pictures of Rick's first day of school! Here he is when he woke up on his first day of school:

And here he is on his second day of school in his flight suit (I missed him in his outfit on the first day).

The only other fun pictures I have to share are from my experience at Red Carpet. Red Carpet is an event that is designed specifically for spouses of the student pilots. It gives us a chance to see what our spouse will be going through this year at pilot training and we had a really great time!

Here is my friend Amanda trying on a G-suit like the pilots have to wear!

The XL tower (with the base commander's car)

Here I am with one of Rick's instructors on the mighty T-6!

And here I am flying a simulator! So fun!

 The last pictures I have to share are specifically for Rick's mom. She surprised us with a child's air force shirt as a little hint that she wants more grandchildren. We made sure that she didn't forget about the grandchild we have already given her!

I put the shirt on backwards by accident, but you get the picture!

Dulce was not happy with the shirt.

Please don't forget about me, June!

I'm sorry this post was so long! I'll try to post more often so the posts aren't so crazy! I hope you enjoyed your recap of Mondays with the Mundys!

Love,
The Mundys

Where in the world are the Mundys?

Hello all!

First off, I apologize that I haven't blogged in forever! I have no idea where all of the time has gone!

Second, I would like to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a very happy new year! I can't believe 2012 is over. This has been the most exciting year of my entire life, and 2013 will have to work very hard to compete. To sum up 2012 in a sentence, this is what happened to us: Rick and I both graduated from college, we got married, we went backpacking throughout Europe, then we drove all the way down to Del Rio and moved into our first house at Laughlin Air Force Base, we adopted the sweetest little puppy, and then a few months later I got my first engineering job and Rick passed IFS. 2013 will certainly be exciting with Rick starting pilot training and my job speeding up. Plus, a couple weddings and a couple trips home and hopefully many house guests down here will really keep us busy and happy!

So, unfortunately I caught the stomach bug that knocked out the rest of my family last week. I drove all the way to work, sent an email to my boss and drove all the way home. Blehh! Oh well, this gives me the chance to get you all caught up on what's happening with the Mundys! Thankfully Dulce has been cuddling with me all day.

So why haven't I blogged in a while? Two reasons: my life has been crazy busy and because my computer died. My dear computer made it all the way through my crazy college years, but just a few months of married life apparently did it in. So I recently got a new computer using the black Friday sales, but my computer has Windows 8 which I have been struggling with. I really don't recommend it at this point, but I'm still trying to give it a fair chance. (Below is a picture of a couple dozen cookies I baked to participate in the Officer Spouse's Club annual cookie caper for all of the single airmen on base and a picture of the candy I made for all of our friends)

Let's see, where did I leave off? Well first off, back in October (oh my goodness, it has been too long since I blogged!) my Mom and Aunt Linda visited us! Oh my goodness, it was so much fun to have more house guests and to show a couple of my favorite ladies our new home and town. (Below is a picture of Mom and Aunt Linda drinking Lime-a-Ritas on Lake Amistad, and a picture of Rick and I overlooking the Mexican border)

Shortly after, I had an interview with a company called Kimberly-Clark. I'm sure all of you use K-C products every day, including: Kleenex, Kotex, Huggies, Cottonelle, Scott, Depends, etc.  However, K-C also has a professional care sector which makes soap, paper towel, and toilet paper dispensers that can be found at business bathrooms, as well as a health care sector that makes face masks, paper gowns, sterilization wraps, etc. They had been looking for a mechanical engineer for a while and hadn't been able to get someone with the amount of experience they were looking for and who was willing to move down to Del Rio and commute over the border every day. Yes, that's right, the job is in Acuna, Coahuila, Mexico.

K-C logo!

Above is a picture of the border crossing back into America.

Well, needless to say I got the job! It is much safer than I had imagined, but I am sure to be careful and aware at all times. I had a really exciting first week on the job because I got to go to Wisconsin to visit our machine. Basically, my whole job is to be part of an engineering team that will bring this huge machine that makes sterilization wraps down from Wisconsin to Acuna. A sterilization wrap is what medical instruments are wrapped in while they go through the sterilization process.  A lot of work has to be done to the existing location, as well as coordinating the transportation down, and getting the asset up and running in a timely manner. I am happy to say that I have finally finished the onboarding process and am able to start really working. (While in WI we made sure to have the cheese curds, yum!)

During that time, Rick went to IFS (Initial Flight Screening) in Pueblo, CO. This is a pass/fail introductory pilot training course that determines whether the student can learn to fly quickly enough to do well during undergraduate pilot training (UPT). Luckily, Rick did very well and was able to come home in just 4 weeks. Now, Rick is scheduled to start UPT on January 24th, so he has a few more weeks of what he has been calling the "retired life" before the stress of pilot training commences.

Rick did not want to leave!

 

 



Unfortunately, Rick was at IFS during Thanksgiving and most of the Christmas season :( . Luckily for me, I was able to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family in Austin. We even had a deep fried turkey! Yummo! And it was cooked so quickly!

By the time Rick came home from IFS we had about a week until it was time for us to go to MA for Christmas. It has been so warm down here in Del Rio that it was hard for us to get into the Christmas spirit, but being in MA really helped! A couple snow storms really made it feel like Christmas.

Above is a picture of my Dad using the snow blower during a snow storm!

Then we got back from MA and we celebrated the New Year with some of our good friends on base. We had a great time! Now, we have to undecorate from Christmas and prepare for my parents' visit next week!

Until next time,

The Mundys

Sorry for the delay!

Oh man, I can't believe how much time has gone by since my last blog post! On the bright side I can say that I officially have a job as a library aid at the base library! It gets me out of the house every day for a bit and I have already met so many amazing people and it's only been two weeks! My coworkers are so great, and the patrons are really friendly. I am very happy with my library job! I do everything that you would imagine a library aid does: I can open and close the library, return items into the system and check out items, shelve books, handle interlibrary loans (somewhat), make library cards, etc. If you have a library question then just ask because I am a wealth of knowledge. On other news, I was so happy to skype with most of my family today! I miss all of them so much and it was really great to see them all. I was even lucky enough to meet my cousin Laurie's baby, Haley! She's already skyping, what an advanced little girl they have!

Dulce get's kind of bummed when I have to go to work and it's time for her to go in her kennel.

So let me review the last few weeks, since I have been neglecting my blogging duties. So first off, a few weeks ago Rick and I were so excited to go to the Oyster Bake and Crawfish Crawl that the base was putting on for the residents. Unfortunately, I think we set our hopes a bit too high for this event because we were slightly disappointed in the food we received. I guess we are spoiled with the seafood that we are used to eating at home. :( In the end we did have a great time though!

Our meal was looking at us!

That same weekend we went up to Austin and visited everybody up there for Ryleigh's 6th birthday party! We are very pleased to say that Dulce was an angel the whole ride up. We were slightly nervous that she was going to bark the whole time and drive us bonkers, but instead she just slept the whole 4.5 hour drive. Thank Goodness!



Dulce in her car kennel

Ryleigh's birthday was a huge success and all of the kids had so much fun, especially Ryleigh!

There was face painting and a magic show for the kids, although all of the adults seemed to enjoy the show too. Almost all of the girls got my little pony ponies on their faces. After spending a week with the Denzins in Europe, Rick and I can confidently say that we know a lot about My Little Pony. Ryleigh got Rainbow Dash drawn on her face, and Aubrey was a princess.  Ryleigh was even the clown's special helper for the magic show!

The party was so darn cute, and it was so great to see David and Amy!

It was especially exciting to watch Ryleigh open all of her presents once all of the kids went home. She really liked the cowgirl boots that were from Rick and I, and she was also really happy with the guitar she received from Uncle Larry and Aunt Judy!

 

Ryleigh even made up a song for us on the spot! Unfortunately, Ranger did not appreciate that we invited Dulce to the party. Dulce was a little too hyper and crazy for good old Ranger. The poor guy just wanted some peace and quiet! Rick and I had a great time visiting our family in Austin and we can't wait to go back soon!

Recently, Rick and I had a surprise visitor in our house, a gecko! While Rick thought this was the coolest thing, I was completely freaked out because it was in our bedroom! Rick tried to trap him and bring him outside, but failed and just dropped him in our room. We never found him, so I was very afraid to go to sleep that night. Oh well!

Another really exciting thing that Rick and I did in the past few weeks was go to a rodeo! Rick has been to a rodeo before, but this was my first time and so we were both really excited about it! The pace of the event ended up being a bit slower than we were hoping for, but it was still very entertaining. Also, thank goodness only a couple guys got seriously hurt! What a ridiculous sport!

One thing that I do love about Del Rio is that when there is an event going on, the whole town turns up for it! Since the nearest town is about a half hour away (not including Acuna which is in Mexico) and is actually smaller than Del Rio, everybody either does whatever the event of the weekend is or they go to San Antonio. Like last weekend there was a roller derby for the local team called Hell Rio on Wheels and by the time we got to the civic center, it was sold out! And this weekend was homecoming for the Del Rio High School football team and we weren't able to go to the game because we couldn't get there an hour before it started. Any later than that and you either weren't going to get a parking spot or the tickets were going to be sold out! Crazy!

Well, that is all for now folks! Stay tuned for another post this week as Rick and I prepare for my mom and Aunt Linda's arrival!

With Love,
The Mundys